It worked, but is it safe?

[hotfxr]

I finally got the flint part working on my hobbed together sea service pistol by soldering a hardened piece of saw blade onto the frisson and it worked OK, I guess. Then I had real fun and bought one of those lighter type chingadero's that Brushhippie was raving about and it's a lot of fun at night. So it was time to get serious and drill in the vent. I used a 1/4X28 stainless liner from Dixie. I drilled a 7/32 hole that went to just short of the opposite side of the bore, then realized that it was now like a CVA and was in the breech plug. I unscrewed it and drilled a hole (just shy of 1/2") down to the middle of the vent liner hole. Then I screwed the plug back in, tapped the hole, counter bored it to fit the shoulder on the liner and screwed it in. Put in a little powder and a piece of newspaper, charged it and shot it in the front yard. It worked like a dream. Now my concern is safety. I am one of those that knows just enough to get in trouble.  I have no plans on shooting a patched ball or maxi bullet through this thing. I will be using it mostly to let kids make fire at night when they visit. Maybe some lead shot once in a while. (I still have that pigeon problem) I took some pictures of the progress for those who know more than I do to peruse.















By the way, the marks on the side of the barrel are from a friend who decide to help me and stuck the barrel in the vise. He is now banned from the shop while I am working on muzzleloaders. I obviously have some finishing work to do, but I wanted to get a consensus on the safety issue before I go any further.

[mongrel]

I would consider your setup to be perfectly safe, as long as the breechplug itself and the vent liner thread in tightly, with no slop. In consideration of the reputedly iffy quality of the steel used on this type of gun, I'd keep loads on the light side. Bear in mind that a measure of lead shot equal in weight to a lead ball, given identical powder charges, will generate roughly equal pressures -- shot is not, in and of itself, a safer (as in less-powerful) loading.